Taiwan’s unnerving president does it again

Lee Teng-hui starts a new row between Taiwan and the mainland

HE MAY have been stating the obvious, but Taiwan's president, Lee Teng-hui, has again raised tensions across the Taiwan Strait with a sudden change in the island's official stance towards China. Mr Lee said this week that instead of the version of the “one-China” policy in use since 1991, when Taiwan's nationalist government gave up its claim to recover the mainland, relations should instead be on a “special state-to-state” basis, a term that more than ever suggests that island and mainland are two separate countries. Sure enough, China—which has long warned the Taiwanese that it would invade if they ever hinted at independence—almost went ballistic.

The “traitorous” Mr Lee was vilified by China's state media. Chi Haotian, China's defence minister, declared: “The Chinese People's Liberation Army is ready at any time to safeguard the territorial integrity of China and smash any attempts to separate the country.” Xinhua, the official news agency, even boasted that China had the technology to make neutron bombs. Many Taiwanese, accustomed as they are to such threats, were unnerved. The stockmarket tumbled. To calm things, the government announced a “stabilisation” fund of NT$500 billion ($15.5 billion), which it said could be used to prevent a mass sell-off.

So why did Mr Lee decide to risk China's wrath by changing the terms of Taiwan's relationship with the motherland? Although it at first appeared to be an impromptu statement by the mercurial Mr Lee, some sort of change has been in the air. For several months, Taiwanese officials have been asking foreign journalists not to use their habitual description of Taiwan as a “renegade province”, even though the cliché is one liked by the authorities in Beijing.

However, it came as a surprise when Mr Lee voiced the new line in an interview with a German radio station broadcast on July 9th. On July 12th, Su Chi, a senior cabinet official and chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, confirmed that the one-China policy had indeed been dumped. Taiwan, he said, was “disappointed” with China because, despite the one-China policy, the mainland's government had continued to “squeeze us internationally”.

In English, Mr Lee's reference to his country as a “state” might seem little different from his habit of promoting Taiwan as an “equal” political entity in China, which is one of a number of deliberately vague terms used by Taiwanese officials. In his radio interview, however, Mr Lee spoke in Mandarin and used the word guojia, which normally means a nation-state or country. This does seem to be bolder.

It is not the first time Mr Lee has provoked China. Talks were suspended by the Chinese in 1995 after Mr Lee visited his former college in the United States. Then in the run-up to Taiwan's first free presidential election the following year, China launched a menacing military exercise, launching several missiles into the sea near the Taiwanese coast, in an obvious attempt to intimidate voters tempted by thoughts of independence. Mr Lee easily won the election.

Now another election is looming. Next month Mr Lee's party, the Kuomintang, is due to nominate the vice-president, Lien Chan, as its presidential candidate for the poll next spring. For Mr Lee, now 78, that would bring to an end 12 years in power, leaving as a legacy the transformation of one of East Asia's most successful economies into its most lively democracy. But would it be enough for Mr Lee? Some of his opponents fear he may be trying to provoke another crisis with China, perhaps in order to postpone next year's election so that he can stay in office.

Certainly, the ruling party's popularity is far from guaranteed. Its official candidate is not much of a vote-grabber. Moreover, one of its former officials, James Soong, is expected to run as an independent in the presidential race. Mr Soong, a provincial governor, has different views on relations with the mainland and has warmed to the idea of a dialogue with China.

Mr Lee's shift in policy could also be linked to a visit planned in October by Wang Daohan, China's top man in Taiwanese affairs. He would be the most senior Chinese official to arrive in Taipei since communist forces drove the army of Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China into exile in Taiwan in 1949. China has been keen to move negotiations on from tedious discussions over practical matters, such as illegal Chinese immigrants, and instead talk about Taiwan's political future and its return to the mainland. But Taiwanese officials have not been keen to do that. Many would prefer to wait until China itself changes, into what they hope will be a more democratic country.

Earlier this year, the United States broached the idea of an interim agreement between China and Taiwan. America is anxious that Mr Wang's visit is not postponed. “We want neither side to take steps or to make statements that make it harder to have the kind of dialogue which we think is the only realistic way to solve problems between them,” said James Rubin, the State Department spokesman. America, he added, continued to support the one-China policy.

Mr Lee's about-face may also have a lot to do with the changing nature of Taiwan's democratic system. Whatever interpretation political leaders would like to apply to the status quo, there is not yet a whole-hearted backing for independence. However corrupt and autocratic the ruling party may be, the pro-independence opposition Democratic Progressive Party still faces an uphill battle in the coming presidential race.

Nor would Mr Lee's cabinet want a real showdown with China. In 1996, during the mainland's war games, the government seemed to calculate that China would make a lot of fuss, but not in the end invade. That may still be true. At first some Taiwanese officials tried to play things down, but then the government dug in its heels. “We have to be fully prepared to control the situation and prepare counter-measures for any change,” said Taiwan's prime minister, Vincent Siew. Government officials were told to try to explain the change to China and the rest of the world. Clearly many are still hoping that the most dangerous weapon in the war will be words, not missiles.